Boulder Community Network

Global Positioning System (GPS)

As noted on the
Critical Dates page,
the weeks counters in the Global Positioning System clocks reset on August 22,
1999. While all the satellites in orbit have been corrected to continue
service, it now turns out some GPS receivers, especially those made before
pre-1994, may have difficulty in managing the revised protocol. However, many
of the manufacturers of those devices have firmware upgrades available to to
allow the units to continue functioning.

Alternatively, the following site may also allow you to search for a link to
the specific company that made your GPS receiver -

Y2Kbase.com is the "Web's first comprehensive, independent database of Y2K
compliance information for consumers."

The database at this site (search for "gps") indexes information regarding
the Y2K bug and how it will impact hundreds of consumer products and services
in over ten categories, including hardware, software, electronics, and
financial services.

An especially interesting and detailed article on the global positioning
system is the following -

"You are Here!"

by William Walling

Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine

October 1999 issue; page 38.

the Boulder library has in the past kept a subscription.

The author goes into a lot of detail about the methodology (and the
several levels of approximation that take place before you are given the final
display) of deriving the location, and presents quite a few examples of
applications the original planners probably never thought of.